Arva Rescuer 27L Backpack

The Arva Rescuer 27L Backpack is a compact and convenient pack perfect for day tours and serious sidecountry use. It has a quick-access zipper system to reach your avalanche tools, reinforced A-frame ski carry loops, snowboard carry straps, and twin ice axe loops. Clean and functional styling will make this the pack you reach for first day after day.

This backpack is designed for backcountry skiing. It has an emergency unzip pocket that holds avalanche safety gear and has imprinted instructions on how to address an avalanche emergency. It's durable, has many pockets for various equipment (goggles, beacon, probe, shovel, skis, snowboard, etc.) and is well made.

This is my first experience with a ski-specific pack, so some features I don't have much experience with.

First, this pack just looks sexy and fits well. Even fully loaded with gear, it feels great on my back thanks to the padded hip straps, ample back padding and full length removable plastic pad and aluminum spine. The front and top of the pack also have a padded liner which helps it retain shape when not full and protects your gear from trees and chairlifts. Despite all this the pack is still relatively lightweight.

This pack has features to side-carry or diagonal-carry skis and can also support a snowboard. I carried my long/heavy (105/186) skis on the sides on a side-country summit hike and barely noticed them on my back. With the slip in/buckle carry design I was able to move my skis from foot to back in under a minute.

The top of the pack opens up to a large gear pocket great for snacks, goggles, small gloves, and other quick-access gear. It also includes an interior zippered mesh organizer pocket for smaller items like keys. The pocket design allows you to open this compartment fully without anything falling out. I love this top gear pocket as it provides ample room and is easy to access without opening the entire pack.

The main compartment is spacious and has only a small sleeve for a water reservoir. Velcro hooks at the top allow you to hang or clip in the reservoir to keep it in place. There are openings above both shoulders to run the water tube out, and the shoulder straps have internal sleeves to run the tube through. One problem I noticed is that the shoulder straps were too narrow to fit my mouthpiece through, so I was unable to run my water tubing through the shoulder straps (not a big deal for me).

Now, the bad: The most prominent and unique feature here is the quick-access avy emergency gear pocket. The back panel zips closed to hide a compartment specifically designed to hold a shovel, probe, beacon, and other emergency gear. The panel zips open like a normal zipper, which is fine, BUT for fast access you can simply grab the tab at the top and rip the whole panel open in under a second. This is pretty cool, except that under heavy loads and/or lots of bumps, the tear-away zipper opens on its own. To reset the zipper, you have to pull the zipper all the way around the panel, which takes a considerable amount of work. This presents a major annoyance. Despite loving pretty much everything else, I felt that with this problem I can only give the pack 3 stars.

Overall, I love this pack but I would be hesitant to purchase it until a new version comes out with a fix for the quick-access zipper issues.

This is my first experience with a ski-specific pack, so some features I don't have much experience with.

First, this pack just looks sexy and fits well. Even fully loaded with gear, it feels great on my back thanks to the padded hip straps, ample back padding and full length removable plastic spine. The front and top of the pack also have a padded liner which helps it retain shape when not full and protects your gear from trees and chairlifts. Despite all this the pack is still relatively lightweight.

This pack has features to side-carry or diagonal-carry skis and can also support a snowboard. I carried my long/heavy (105/186) skis on the sides on a side-country summit hike and barely noticed them on my back. With the slip in/buckle carry design I was able to move my skis from foot to back in under a minute.

The top of the pack opens up to a large gear pocket great for snacks, goggles, small gloves, and other quick-access gear. It also includes an interior zippered mesh organizer pocket for smaller items like keys. The pocket design allows you to open this compartment fully without anything falling out. I love this top gear pocket as it provides ample room and is easy to access without opening the entire pack.

The main compartment is spacious and has only a small sleeve for a water reservoir. Velcro hooks at the top allow you to hang or clip in the reservoir to keep it in place. There are openings above both shoulders to run the water tube out, and the shoulder straps have internal sleeves to run the tube through. One problem I noticed is that the shoulder straps were too narrow to fit my mouthpiece through, so I was unable to run my water tubing through the shoulder straps (not a big deal for me).

Now, the bad: The most prominent and unique feature here is the quick-access avy emergency gear pocket. The back panel zips closed to hide a compartment specifically designed to hold a shovel, probe, beacon, and other emergency gear. The panel zips open like a normal zipper, which is fine, BUT for fast access you can simply grab the tab at the top and rip the whole panel open in under a second. This is pretty cool, except that under heavy loads and/or lots of bumps, the tear-away zipper opens on its own. To reset the zipper, you have to pull the zipper all the way around the panel, which takes a considerable amount of work. This presents a major annoyance. Despite loving pretty much everything else, I felt that with this problem I can only give the pack 3 stars.

Overall, I love this pack but I would be hesitant to purchase it until a new version comes out with a fix for the quick-access zipper issues.

I bought this for bike commuting and back-country skiing. The quick access pocket unzipped quickly but only had one zipper, so that once unzipped to re-zip you have to trace back up the whole length of the zipper the wrong way. Huge pain, poor design that makes that pocket more or less useless for anything but an actual emergency. Also the back was very stiff, perhaps some sort of added spine protection. not very comfortable. Otherwise the pack was stylish and had good features. not for me.